


Half Hour Strike

by goddessofcheese



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Domestic, Gen, Slice Of Life In The Shadow Of The Traveler, sometimes you just gotta have OCs who have little corner shops and war flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofcheese/pseuds/goddessofcheese
Summary: Tick. Tick. Tick.The light in the Ghost's eye trembles even more dimly."Hang on."Tick. Tick. Tick.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Half Hour Strike

The shop opens before most of the City is awake. But Florence-10 has been waking up at 4 am, on the dot, for as long as he can remember. Since before there even was a City. So he's got it pretty down pat by now. Ten minutes of dressing, feeding the cat, and looping a bag over his shoulder and he's off.

His district is about as quiet and dark as the only metropolis of Earth with a giant floating monolith of Light can get. Most of the shop lights are off and there are only a few windows lit from inside. A few pigeons coo at him as he goes. It’s peaceful. A good way to start a day of work.

The sounds and actions of his morning routines have become set into his mechanical mind like a sheet of music. His feet on the path from his home to the storefront. The ding of his keypass at the lock. Ducking his head so he doesn't hit the door frame. The soft clicks of the overheads turning on. Slowly, the small and densely packed room reveals itself.

It's only ever been one space. The glass display in the center and facing the door, simple and classic. A bench behind it is his workroom, though he can barely see it under the piles of materials and tools, more of which are hung in rows within arm’s reach. Above that, a wooden clock of a European design that's even older than he is ticks with determined force. A skylight in the roof allows for some of the Traveler's light to come through and will soon add in some natural sunshine. And all along the walls, shelves of varying age and style are full to bursting with shells.

Ghost shells.

They are all possible colors the world has given him, and then done again in new patterns and shapes. Some glowed with holographic effects or could be programed to show off special displays of Light. Many are in their traditional triangular shapes, but a growing number are of all sorts of unusual and unique styles. Some are patterns hundreds of years old, celebrating the history of the world and its traditions. But more are simply because he had seen sometime simple like a flower or a flame, and thought of how he could best preserve it in this form. The combination of this all burst the wall into blooming shades and tones, an explosion of contrast all together. The Traveler's warbling light from above reflects off of them like gems under water.

Florence, at the point of age where he doesn't much count the years anymore, has had this shop since nearly the founding of the City. There were chances plenty to move to a bigger location that would bring him more customers or allow him some employees, especially since agreeing to sell some of his more popular designs with that Everis girl. He'd even been offered space up in the Tower, more than once, to work for the Vanguard directly, to design sturdier shells for combat and spywork. Which was all well in good; he was a proud citizen, that was for sure. But he turned them down every time. This was his place. A responsibility and a haven.

He sits down with an oomf onto his bench and begins to work in silence. Three pale white shells lay out in a row before him, a commission for a fireteam's anniversary -- a matching set of blue and gold with the date inlaid in silver along the wings, just in time for the Dawning. With this image in mind, he takes up his tools between his fingertips and begins. Ghost shells had to be made with utmost care to match both style and security. Sure, both them and Guardians loved them to be unique; both likes to show off sometimes to the extreme. But that wouldn’t matter if it fell apart while you were under attack from Cabal with rocket launchers, now would it?

The clock continues ticking.

* * *

The first customer to enter is a Ghost he's met before. She's wearing one of his oldest designs, orange on top, blue on the bottom, both halves overlaid with stripes. Though she doesn't yet have a Guardian, she still likes watching the Crucible. Runs a VanNet forum for it if he remembered correctly.

"Sparky," he calls, looking up from his work.

"Florence!" She floats in through the hole in the door meant for her sort and flitted up to him, wriggling with excitement before plopping down onto one of the little pillows spread out in a row on the edge of his desk. She wiggles into it, getting good and comfy. "Good morning! Did you see the matches last night?"

He shakes his head no -- just as she was probably expecting; he’s never been one for sports stuff. Too chaotic. Too loud.

Sparky launches into a thrilling play-by-play -- just as he was expecting. The Ghost doesn't mind that he keeps on working with the gears and ornaments as she talks, or at least it's never stopped her. It takes her about an hour to go over the finer points of a ten-minute match, on top of who's using what new weird weapon, who got banned for trying to bring in dragon bones, who found out that fusion rifle was broken again, the usual.

"Hey!" she suddenly interrupts, floating back up from her seat. "What are you doing for the Dawning?"

Florence pauses, brush dipped into the blue paint bottle. He hadn't been expecting that.

"Working?" he offers.

She rolls her little blue eye and sighs. "Florence..."

"What?"

"You can’t work on the Dawning! It's--" She twists her shell around erratically, trying to find the words to explain and apparently failing. "It's the Dawning!"

"I've worked every year for the Dawning, don't see why this one's different," he says in his low calm voice. "It's what I like to do."

"Yeah but you should be having fun! A party, a candle-lighting ceremony, just something fun! With other people!."

He makes a noise and goes back to painting.

Giving him a long look, Sparky eventually sighs and gets comfortable on the pillow again. “Fine. But oh let me tell you about this new thing I saw!”

His guest continues to rattle on for a bit about how Shaxx is introducing some cool new challenges now, something about scorch cannons, but it all fades to noise as he focuses further into the work. A long line of ink becomes a flower here. An adjustment of metal there with the smallest of creaks. He feels himself slip into the flow of it, the rest of the world falling away like sheets of paper on the wind until it's just him and the bench. It’s a feeling that he only experiences here, in his shop, with his tools of creation and art. The only sound left in the world is the clock above him.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Serenity.

After what must have been at least another hour, Sparky suddenly hops up.

"Welp! I've got to go make my rounds, I'll catch you later!"

"Mmhm."

She pauses at the door and then turns to face him, slowly rotating curiously. "Florence."

He looked up and pulled back the headband microscope. "Yeah."

"I'm serious this time. You need to get out more. Hang out with people."

"I see lots of people. People like you."

"Aww, shucks. That's real flattering and all but you know what I mean, other people. Guardians, Humans, Awoken, maybe even other Exos! When was the last time you ate a meal with someone?"

He doesn't respond. He knows he didn't have an answer for that.

"Just consider it. Ciao!" Like a firefly, she zips up and away, leaving Florence alone again in the shop.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

* * *

When he looks up again, it's deep into the night. Where has the time gone? Florence stretches his arms up, feeling the pleasure of clicking gears and the stretch of synthetic muscles along his back that haven't moved in hours. But the shells are done, not a single piece out of place. He messages their buyers that they can bring the glimmer or whatever they have to trade tomorrow. There. Time to go home.

Just as silently as he arrived, he closes up shop. A flower field of empty shells look back at him as they are plunged into shadow and the door clicks shut. Stepping out onto his doorstep, he turns his eyes upward. The Traveler shines high above, illuminated further by some free-floating lanterns someone has set loose. It even looks like it's going to snow. Everything is--

"FLORENCE!"

He jumps at the shout, a scream really, of his name and turns to face the figure running down the street at full speed. Human, with a curly undercut and heavy armor, cupping their hands in front of them as if carrying something tiny. Ancient muscle memory sends Florence's hand reaching down to his hip for a holster that isn’t there -- but just as quickly he shakes it off before the stranger arrives in front of him. They're panting as if they'd run a marathon and just as sweaty.

"You're-- You're Florence, right? The, uh, the mechanic?"

He nods. Seeing this, the Guardian holds out what they've been carefully holding -- a Ghost, pink shell crumbled to pieces and exposing the bare chassis beneath, the triangular blue eye visible but just barely flickering.

Florence’s gut drops. This Ghost is as good as dead.

The Guardian begins to babble, "We were on the Moon and this Hive snuck up on us and I just-- I need--"

"Inside." Florence unlocks the door again, holding it open wide. "Now."

* * *

The evening hours melt away into midnight. The streets are now completely silent, blanketed by both sleeping residents and newly falling snow. The shop is all but silent too, the only sound being the clock relentlessly counting down the seconds that they have left as Florence's large hands delicately repair the Ghost's tiny body.

The poor Guardian -- Thato -- was so newly risen that he apparently had not fully understood the danger of being in a dark zone, those places of potent evil and malice. So when he had gotten pinned down by a small army of Hive and pulled out his Ghost for help--

Well.

He's here now.

Thato is sleeping now, the last of his energy spent after obediently taking some water and the offered leftover lunch Florence been saving for dinner. For his own self, Florence’s body calls for rest but there's no time. If he doesn't do this fast enough, the Ghost would lose her chance to recover her Light and their window for healing would be lost forever. He fixes what broken pieces he has materials on hand for and he can almost feel her trying to reach out. And yet she’s so weak. Why?

A headband loupe over his right eye enhances his vision down as small as possible until he can see the grooves of his own synthetic fingertips. He imagines that if he were human he'd be sweating.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

The light in the Ghost's eye trembles even more dimly.

"Hang on."

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

There. Lodged into the side, he can see it. A shard wedged into her side, razor thin and almost imperceptible to the naked eye. That must be what's stopping her from fully connecting to her Light. Tweezers in hand, he reaches forward and clamps down onto it.

__

The world goes dark.

This feeling that he's falling even as he's sitting still.

How is he so cold?

Suddenly he's back in the field. Up to his knees in mud and loose concrete. Orders being shouted to him, demanding obedience, desperate to be heard over the gunfire. Even with his eyes shut tight, his mind can see the swell of metal bodies and how the sky has been ripped open like silk. There’s just a hole in the blue that gets bigger and bigger until all he can see is nothingness.

And over it all, the **ticking** \--

The piece pulls free and so does he. The Ghost's eye snaps back on immediately and her shell-less body jumps straight into the air with a flash of Light.

"Thato!"

The Titan jerks awake with wet streaks still on his face. Holding out his hands, he calls out, "Lys!"

She carefully floats over and falls into his waiting hand as he pulls her close, whispering, "What happened?"

"Shh. It's ok. I got you to that guy you said to find. He did it."

If Ghosts could smile, he could hear it in the way she sighs with relief.

Florence gets to his feet. He should give them some privacy. "I'll get a temp shell. It'll be serviceable for now, until you can get a better one."

And with that he goes over to the shelves, just out of earshot, letting them comfort each other. He finds that he’s moving a little faster, a little more erratically than normal. All… that. Had that been real? It had certainly felt it, still riding through his system like a live shock. Or like a bad dream he thought he’d forgotten only for it to come again. No... no more like a bad memory--

No. Time to focus.

He looks out over the shells, looking for the usual plain white ones that all Ghosts were born with, the ones he’s replicated for just standard use. But as he reaches up for one, he pauses. And thinks. Then reaches for another one. It’s a newer one, made just the other day. Gold, white, and blue, it’s shaped like a star and has a little bit of flair to make it look like snow is falling around it. A bit of a flamboyant one, he admits, but with the season came certain expectation of aesthetics. Normally he would’ve asked for quite a bit for this one, given how long it had taken to craft, but…

Walking back to the pair, he holds it out to see. “Here.”

Both Guardian and Ghost blink, stunned.

“But that’s beautiful!” Lys is the first to speak, shaking side to side. “I couldn’t.”

“I insist. It's… it's a gift. For coming back to the City. And for what you sort do out there.” Florence pushes it more directly to them. “Now. Before I change my mind.”

Lyse looks to Thato for confirmation, and once he nods she moves forward to let Florence click it into place. Once activated, it begins to glow as soft as candlelight. Thato claps with approval and grins ear to ear.

For a bit, they talk about repair costs. Thato promises to bring him anything he wants once they’ve had some time to recover. Florence just waves them off. He’s never been entirely fussed about payment. And the snow has started to come down hard. It’s really time for them all to go home. As they leave the shop and Florence is locking up again, Thato turns to him.

“Hey. Are you doing anything tonight? For the Dawning?”

Florence looks up. How can he be so old yet feel so sheepish all of a sudden? “N-no. I live alone. Why?”

Guardian and Ghost look to each other and nod before Thato extends a hand to him. “Listen. Before all this, we got invited to a small party. Just us and some other Guardians and techs from the Tower. We’re going to make some food, light some candles and such. Nothing too crazy, yknow.”

“We’d be honored if you joined us!” Lys spins in the air, glistening in the moonlight. “I can’t wait to show off this shell!”

“I… Um…”

Florence looks back to the shop. It's dark and empty and where that had given him comfort before now he feels a chip of dread that he thought he had shaken off years and years ago. But there too, he sees the clock. Glowing in the dark, alone in the shadows but illuminating nonetheless. Carrying on regardless of what was around it. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Florence looks back to Thato and smiles a little.

“I’d love to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Done without a beta so please feel free to point out errors.
> 
> This is mostly a love letter to the Last City and how much I love its world-building. Also old robots are always gold.
> 
> s/o to @xfreischutz on twitter for giving the world little beds for Ghosts which I have incorporated here, and to @rolameny here on AO3 for the perfect tag "Slice Of Life In The Shadow Of The Traveler".


End file.
